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Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Impossibility of Picking Favorites

I'm not good at picking favorites.

One of my best friends' favorite color is green. It has always been green. No doubt it will always be green. But my favorite color? Um...yellow. No, hot pink! No, look at that lovely shade of turquoise!

Favorite movie? Stranger than Fiction. No, Independence Day. Or maybe I Am Legend! The Fellowship of the Ring?

I can't tell you what my favorite food is, what my favorite dessert is, or what my favorite animal is at the zoo. My favorites are always shifting.

But I do love books. Books are possibly my favorite thing ever. Even better than new boots. Even better than kittens. Maybe even better than chocolate!

Do I have a favorite book? I can't say...

There was a time when I might have said my favorite book was Watership Down. Another time when I might have said it was Clan of the Cave Bear. There was a time when my teenage self would have said my favorite book was The Hobbit. But the more I read, the more books I love, and the harder it is for me to nail down a title that has earned the rank of My Favorite Book.

Each of those books is beloved. Each of those books deserves a place on my favorites shelf. But that shelf is also filled with titles like The Wind Singer by William Nicholson, Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, Heartbeat by Sharon Creech, The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, The Lunar Chronicles (series) by Marissa Meyer, Everfound by Neal Shusterman, Across the Universe by Beth Revis, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, and so many more. How can I pick just one from a list like that?

I guess that's why I have such a hard time getting rid of books. They are all my favorite. They all deserve a special place in my heart and on my shelves.

What about you? Can you narrow down your favorites to one book? Or one author? Or even one genre?

2 comments:

What a great post here! Oh dear, oh dear...I had to let go of a lot of books when I moved, & now I still have shelves & shelves of favorite favorites. What if I had to pick one book, (& memorize it like in Farhenheit 451 ??) No, I can't, please don't make me do it! Perhaps I'll do a book post too, showing some of my favorite categories though...and it will be fun to look into some of yours!

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I am a children's author, poet, and fan of all things creative and fun, especially when they relate to books! I like to share helpful tips and inspiration for readers and writers, occasional book reviews, and random musings about life. Enjoy your visit!